Sir Paul McCartney has admitted that many of his advisors warned him not to appear on this year’s X Factor final.

The former Beatles star revealed that some people thought he was too big for the show and that an appearance would damage his reputation.

Paul told The Sun:

‘At first, when we talked about going on X Factor, it was a bit of a worry, I must say. It was like, ‘People say we shouldn’t do that. They say you are too big for a show like that. It’ll ruin your reputation’ and I thought about it. But then I’m always getting told that – ‘Don’t go to perform in Israel’ or ‘You can’t do this or that’.’

‘Then if someone tells me not to do it, I want to do it more. They said, ‘Don’t do X Factor’ and I said, ‘Wait a minute, let’s check it out’.’

He added: ‘I started asking people in the street. They all said, ‘Oh, do that, it’s great.’ I’m a fan of normal people and normal people usually get it right. The attitude to X Factor from some people is strange. Look, it’s very much a family show and most people love it. They are all talking about it all the time.’

Sir Paul said the show really impacts public opinion: ‘It polarises the purists. We’ve had that with The Beatles before and whether we should remaster stuff.

‘The thing with X Factor is, you don’t have to turn it on. It is really not a bad thing. You are talking about people being on the dole – this gets people off the dole. It gives some people an opportunity, it gives them confidence, it gives them work. There is nothing wrong with that.’